Cass Freight Index - Volume and Rates

Nah, there's gonna be pent up demand, the question is when.

 

Wife's car is about to collapse.
I'm sick of throwing money at it.
Right now she's not driving it much. (Still might break any day now.)
My car has a flat, has ridiculous tires on it (or just tires are pricey in general. I remember $120 ghetto Uniroyals on 15" wheels. Now you gotta get Z rated directional rubber bands on 20's! Came with the car, had no choice.) so it's sitting on a donut spare while I'm out with the truck.

Also, wife's phone & mine are over 4 generations back. Way overdue for replacement. iOS is unsupported.

So once the stores open I've got $800 in "things I need to buy" AND a possible car! (Or $3k in service.) so yeah, pent up demand.

 

List of things my wife's car needs:

1.) two front tires
2.) possibly two front rims, I have no idea why they keep losing air but this is the 3rd set of tires this car has gone through and the only thing I can think of is the rims are cracked.
3.) exhaust rebuild. It's all rotted & rusted. Didn't pass emissions last year because of it.
4.) clunking on front end. Probably a bad strut. JUST replaced it! Wife didn't take it back and demand a warranty fix, so now I have to eat the cost AGAIN. $1200! This will be the 3rd time I've replaced the struts on it. Guy says it's cheap Chinese parts. They fail within months.
5.) airbag light hasn't gone off in 2 years. Google says this is a fault caused by the wire harness in the steering wheel. Other symptoms are loss of horn and steering wheel switches. Common problem on this model at its age.
6.) manual seat height adjustment stopped working. No fix, just replace whole seat. $600.
7.) window switches occasionally stop working. So far they've always come back and I haven't had to tape a garbage bag to the window overnight or in the rain.
8.) both key fobs are broken physically. It's a switchblade style key and they wear out over time.
Also, keyless entry quit working. It WAS a battery thing but when both went over a period of time the car de-synched to the keys. Dealer wants big money to reprogram. Not worth it.

So yeah, probably $3-5k to get all current issues addressed. And after all that it's a 10 year old minivan with 150k miles and rust starting to set in. $3-5k would be better put towards a lease.